Choose Treasure over Trash

“Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)

Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”

“Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”

But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.”

So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew.

He ate and drank, and then got up and left.

So Esau despised his birthright.”

Genesis 25:29-34

 

 

Imagine someone gave you a choice between two properties.

Both were exactly one hundred acres.

After you made your selection, you were the owner of anything the parcels contained.

 One parcel held a vault filed with gold bullion.

The other one was a piece of property on which a landfill sat.

And no, the landfill did not have an undiscovered oil field beneath its soil.

It would seem, anyone in their right mind would select the parcel with the vault.

Yet Esau faced a similar choice and he chose the ‘trash’ over the treasure.

For the satisfying of a growling stomach he gave away his birthright.

He did not value the inheritance that was his through his father Isaac.

We are co-heirs with Christ.

We can walk in that inheritance or, like Esau, we can walk away from it.

It is as if we are given a choice between treasure and trash and we go with the trash.

“Preposterous!” you say?

Don’t be so sure.

You see, the inheritance, far more valuable than a vault of gold bullion is turned down every day.

People, no, make that believers; have decided instead to camp out at the landfill.

Why would they do such a crazy thing?

They do it for the same reason that Esau did: a fleeting satisfaction of the

flesh’s ‘current’ desire.

Don’t forfeit what was purchased through the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross for some momentary pleasure.

Choose ‘treasure’ over ‘trash’!